Marriage between Neymar and PSG is coming to an end – 08/10/2023 – Sport

It was August 5, 2017, and Neymar had been speaking for five minutes, for the first time, as a Paris Saint-Germain player, alongside the club’s president, Nasser Al-Khelaifi. The Brazilian striker interrupted the boss, asking if there was a termination fine for the future sale of the most expensive player on the planet.

“I just arrived, and you already want me to leave?”, he questioned.

There is no termination penalty, as is the practice in French football. Any athlete leaving under contract must have the consent of the club. Six years later, the marriage of convenience between the Brazilian and PSG is coming to an end.

Neymar wanted Paris to be the best in the world and the main star of a top club, not one of the satellites around star king Lionel Messi, as happened at Barcelona, ​​where he stayed between 2013 and 2017. PSG wanted a star who lead his billion-dollar project to dominate European football.

If this is the end of the line, neither party was successful.

According to the French press, PSG have communicated that they do not want to rely on Neymar. The reciprocal is true.

A friend of the attacker’s family told Sheet that the regret of having left Barcelona is not new and that, as far as Neymar was concerned, the divorce would have been finalized at least two years ago.

The athlete’s desire is to return to Barcelona, ​​from where he left for PSG in what is still the largest transaction in the history of football. With money from the royal family of Qatar, owner of the French association, the amount of the termination fine was paid: 222 million euros (R$ 1.2 billion at current exchange rates).

The Spanish club did everything possible to keep Neymar at the time. During pre-season in the United States, several players, led by Messi, asked him to stay. He postponed the decision for some time even though, weeks before, when he was on vacation in Brazil, he had told several friends that the transfer to Paris was agreed.

Now the return can be complicated too, even with PSG’s goodwill to release it. Neymar’s salary is around 4 million euros per month (R$ 21.4 million). It’s a lot for the Catalan team, still under the financial constraints that forced it to give up the greatest player in its history in 2021: Messi.

At the time, the Argentine went to PSG and became the Brazilian’s partner again. He left this year to play for Inter Miami, in the United States league.

Three days before the start of the Spanish Championship, Barcelona were unable to register their new reinforcements because of the “financial fair play” rule. By the rules of the local tournament, preference in the salary space of the cast is for players who are already at the club. Not for newcomers, as would be the case with Neymar.

An alternative is Saudi Arabia, the new financial eldorado of world football. Al Ittihad and Al Hilal would be interested. Cristiano went to the country at the age of 38. Benzema accepted the proposal at 35. The question is whether the Brazilian, who has not yet made it clear whether he intends to play in the next World Cup or not, will leave Europe and go to a billionaire league, but peripheral, at 31.

In Neymar’s six years at PSG, the team was dominant in the French league. He was champion in five of the six seasons. But supremacy already existed before the arrival of the Brazilian. The dream of winning the Champions League did not come true. The closest the team came was the 2020 final, when they lost to Bayern Munich.